Family Tradition
by Tolakasa
Summary: TCD 'verse. Seriously, why can't these boys respect a man's inalienable right to be a miserable old curmudgeon at Christmas?


Reminder: Much, much more in this 'verse is available at Livejournal and AO3. Sorry, guys, it's just easier to put it up over there.

* * *

 **Family Tradition**

Christmas wasn't his favorite time of the year. Too much hype, too many memories, and never enough in the way of hunting to keep a man distracted, because the materialism of the age had tainted even the monsters. Even hunters tended to huddle together for a few days—with family, if they still had any left, or at places like Harvelle's, where cheap alcohol and cheaper Christmas lights created a comfortable illusion for a night or two.

Bobby Singer really did prefer to stay at home, by himself, pleasantly drunk—preferably unconscious—through New Year's.

Okay, so that was how his television wound up with a shotgun wound, but it wasn't like he watched it a lot in the first place. He was a busy man.

Not this year, though. Oh, _no_.

Now that Sam was living in the same town as Dean, they were plotting together again, reminding Bobby just how annoying a matched set they were. A decade of them living in separate states had dulled the memory of that particular pain in his ass.

Mix in Hannah and Marcy, with their brains and the Reynolds luck, and the stupid Winchester schemes actually _worked_. Gotta give those boys credit for finding women who were simultaneously dumb enough to put up with their antics and way more clever than they'd ever been.

Oh, and who had the one thing the Winchesters had always lacked: the money to back it up.

Which was how Bobby found himself being loaded like so much luggage onto the Reynolds' corporate-slash-family jet two days before Christmas, with an escort consisting of Sam and several large and hulking in-laws (he never had bothered trying to memorize all of them), with no option whatsoever for staying in his own fucking house. They'd shown up on his doorstep, packed him up, and dragged him out, Sam locking the gates and putting up a neat little "closed for the holidays" sign behind them. Sam had even lifted his phone before Bobby could call for help.

Merry fucking Christmas.

It wasn't enough that Dean dragged the entire brood to the yard once a year, giving him a couple of weeks of sky-high blood pressures while he tried to keep the big ones out of the demonology and the little ones out of the junkers? Now _he_ was the one getting dragged? He'd trekked out here for Christmas a few times, and for most of the adoption parties, but dammit, at least he'd _chosen_ that.

There was one small mercy: He wasn't staying at Dean's. Sam and Hannah's house was finished now, and since they only had the one kid, it was _way_ quieter. Marianne was walking, but she wasn't tall enough to reach a standard doorknob and her little fingers weren't skilled enough yet to get her through a locked door. At Sam's house, Bobby would have some privacy if he wanted it. That wasn't always the case at the Reynolds-Winchester Three-Ring Circus.

Sorry. The _first edition_ Reynolds-Winchester Three-Ring Circus, because nobody with half a brain thought for a second that Sam and Hannah were going to be any less crazy.

Well, Sam might. Boy'd always had a stubborn optimistic streak. Bobby still wasn't sure if Sam knew what exactly Hannah's job was; after all the fights they'd had over hunting, he was pretty sure Sam wouldn't still be so annoyingly optimistic if he knew that Hannah was running the Reds. Bobby should probably ask before he let something slip. He didn't want to be the one responsible for destroying marital bliss.

At least, not unintentionally.

So. Here he was, wishing his coffee was spiked.

The big to-do for the Reynoldses was on Christmas Day, and since there weren't any other Winchesters, Bobby had assumed that Sam and Dean would just go along with it. Maybe make a little something special for the Christmas Eve meal, they still had to eat and feed all the kids, but nothing major.

Nope. Not a chance.

Now that both of them were properly settled down—houses, wives, kids, a soccer-mom van for Dean and two stupidly named cats for Sam, the whole nine yards—they apparently felt the need to have their _own_ tradition, even if they _were_ in-laws as well as brothers. Henceforth, their families would get together for Christmas Eve dinner.

And "family" apparently included _him_.

Bobby would trade his left leg to know how the hell the Harvelles had gotten out of this. Missouri Mosely, he understood, she still had her own family to tend to. And somewhere out there, there had to be some family that—however reluctantly—admitted to spawning Ash. But Ellen and Jo? They had nobody left but each other, and considering the way Winchesters attacked family, blood or otherwise, like starving amoebas, the Harvelles should be crammed on the love seat commiserating with him.

Maybe Ellen had used the bar as an excuse. Sam and Dean might not have been there recently enough to realize that she'd hired help. _Real_ help, not Ash.

Huh. There was a thought for next year. Maybe if he got Jake to stage a panicked call, needing research with— Well, he had a year to think of something bad enough to demand his immediate attention, yet not bad enough to demand Hannah's.

Dinner, at least, had been magnificent. T.J., one of the first kids who had aged out with Dean and Marcy, way back when they started fostering, was now a professional chef—or so Dean had told him, with as much paternal pride as if _he'd_ had something to do with it—and he'd come "home" to cook. It hadn't been _quite_ traditional, but the funky non-tomato-based salsa was actually tasty on the roast whichever-beast-that-was. And there was no need to worry about being deprived of more traditional foods. He'd been here often enough to know that no holiday dinner at Anne Reynolds' house was ever _less_ than full-on Southern traditional, with more than enough food to stuff nine families silly and send them home with enough leftovers for a week.

Bobby hoped somebody had inherited Allene's punch recipe. By the time they got to the main homestead, with the zillion Reynoldses on top of the Winchesters, he was gonna need a drink. _Several_ drinks. Marcy had hidden the liquor here.

Of course, there was a second, less appetizing part to the new Winchester Family Christmas, this one completely Marcy's doing. Everybody was now crammed into the living room—and considering the size and ceiling height of this living room, which was of a scale to match a building that could house eleven-plus kids with room to spare, it took a lot to make it feel "crammed"—watching a marathon of antique cartoons on DVD.

Bobby hadn't even managed to take a breath to protest before Sam and Dean overruled him, and when he tried to silently appeal to Marcy, she being the sole spouse of the four that had some sense, she just grinned at him and steered him to one of the love seats.

To think he used to approve of that girl.

He wasn't sitting alone. He was sharing one of the love seats with Rissa, because her bad leg made it harder for her to sit on the floor, and because she needed the lamp on the end table to see what she was doing. Some kind of fancy sewing, though Bobby didn't know what kind. Otherwise, it seemed, possession of the actual seats went by age—that was why T.J. was sitting on the sofa with Marcy and Dean, instead of Maggie. Sam and Hannah sat on the love seat across from Bobby, with Ananda squeezed between Sam and the arm.

The rest of the kids sat on the floor between the three, all quiet for possibly the first time since Bobby had met any of them, since there was a rule about no talking during this cartoon-watching exercise. Teri—one of the age-out kids, like T.J.—hadn't made it home this year like she usually did; some kind of medical emergency in her husband's family. Maggie, home from college, was leaning back against Dean's legs, with Kara in her lap and Nyssa snug between her and Johnny, and Mikey was tucked between Johnny and Kevin, possibly sitting on T.J.'s feet. Baz and Pablo, the newest fosters, were on this side, leaning back between Bobby's legs and Rissa's. The twins—

No, wait, the twins—the _old_ twins, he corrected himself—weren't here tonight. Dean and Marcy had finally succumbed to common sense when they got the twins' aunt, their last surviving relative, into the country, and hired her as a housekeeper. Ricky and Nicky lived with her now. They were over here after school, until Lupe finished her shift by saving everybody from Dean's cooking, but they didn't live here anymore. They'd left early today because T.J. was making dinner.

The _new_ twins were here, but Sierra couldn't sit on the floor any more than Rissa could. Her wheelchair was parked where Dean's normally went, and Kieran sat at his sister's feet, Sabrina in his lap, ready to spring up and fetch anything his twin might need.

Dean really needed to learn to say "no" to that social worker of theirs. Numbers aside, there was nothing supernaturally wrong with Sierra and Kieran, but not a lot of foster homes were wheelchair-accessible and Dean had a...thing...about separating siblings.

Bobby looked into his coffee cup. Good coffee, he'd give them that, but... He wondered if he could get his flask out without _somebody_ noticing.

Probably not. Dammit.

The tree was behind Sam and Hannah, so Bobby had no choice but to look at it when the Grinch got too much. A _real_ tree—Dean didn't do artificial for some reason—and huge; seven feet tall, if not eight, bedecked in so many lights that Rissa could have used it for stitch lighting, with garlands and ornaments and all the trimmings—

Bobby's eyes narrowed. Did that ornament actually have a Devil's Trap engraved on it? And that one garland—

Jesus. Only a Winchester—or Hannah—would think it appropriate to make a Christmas tree garland out of silver bullets and rock salt crystals. _I bet some of those beads are jade, too_. Hell, the thing was probably sitting in a puddle of holy water. And Marcy had probably gotten that priest-uncle of hers to bless it and everything on it, down to the lights. Not to mention whatever evil-repelling things Hannah had hung on it.

He hadn't gotten a really good look at the tree at Sam's house yet, but he'd be willing to bet that it was a similar mess. Maybe not quite as elaborate, but Dean and Marcy had been decorating trees for over ten years, while Sam and Hannah were still new at it. They hadn't had time to accumulate that level of decoration.

And this was only the beginning of the night. When the marathon was over, Marcy and Hannah and some of the kids would go off to midnight Mass. Dean wouldn't go, of course, and the rest of the kids would stay here. Sam would take Marianne—and Bobby—back to his house. Bobby wasn't sure which was the better excuse, the baby or the houseguest, but Sam didn't seem shy about using them both.

Not that Bobby blamed him a bit. The last time he'd been roped into spending Christmas at Dean's, he'd gotten "volunteered" to put together a plastic kitchen without so much as a glass of spiked punch to alleviate his misery.

At least the kids were fairly well enraptured by the cartoons, and therefore quiet and calm. Only Marianne had done any wandering, and she'd only gotten away with it because she was so young. No kid her age could watch three hours of TV, not even Christmas cartoons, without a break.

And _God_ , it made Bobby keenly aware of just how old he was, watching her climb up Sam's leg and demand to be held. Sam had done the exact same thing, in those long-ago days when John was new at hunting and Dean had still been silent with grief and little Sammy hadn't yet learned to be wary of everybody. Sam had never pulled that stunt with John—he'd learned _that_ lesson before he even learned to walk—but somehow, before Sammy had acquired the Winchester skittishness, every time they visited, Bobby wound up trying to research around a toddler in his lap, usually with Dean hovering anxiously nearby. The only way he'd finally gotten peace was to teach them both to read so he could set them up with their own "research."

He hid a smile in his coffee. John had been _pissed_ at that. Like he was ever going to take the time to teach his boys to read.

The Grinch was lying through his teeth to Cindy Lou Who, and Bobby must have blanked for a minute, because he was sure that "Gampa" wasn't uttered by Boris Karloff.

"Gampa!"

There was a choked-off noise from the vicinity of Sam, whose lap was suspiciously empty, and Bobby looked down in time to see Marianne trying to climb up on the arm of the love seat. "Gampa!" she said again, holding her arms out in what was plainly a demand.

"Better pick her up," Rissa advised softly, "before she starts screaming."

Bobby set his cup of coffee on the end table and lifted Marianne up. She promptly curled up in his lap like she belonged there and started sucking her thumb.

Across the room, Hannah made a move as if to reach for her phone, and Bobby gave her his best _don't even think about it, idjit_ glare.

 _Gampa_. No question what Marianne was trying to say on that one. He'd been _through_ this with the boys, dammit. The kids _had_ grandparents. He was supposed to be _Uncle_ Bobby, same as he had been for Dean and Sam. None of this "grandpa" shit.

The Grinch had ceased to hold any attraction for Sam or Dean. Every time Bobby glanced up, he caught one—if not both—grinning at him like he was too old to kick their asses for it. Did they think the kids would stop him? Did they think a _baby_ would stop him?

Bobby gritted his teeth. He was seriously going to make those ingrates pay for this. How to do that, though...

The Grinch finally finished with a flourish of music, and everybody started stretching for the DVD-change break.

Marianne decided this was an excellent time to scale Mount Bobby. She hauled herself up to her feet, clutching at his shirt to keep her balance. He flinched at the weight on his legs and pried her hands loose from his shirt so that she could stand up straighter. She laughed delightedly—and then pulled loose to make a grab for his cap. "Oh, no, you don't," he said, edging her more towards his knees so that it was out of reach. She found this just as amusing, and babbled something at him.

Marianne took after Hannah rather than Sam—black curls and nearly-black eyes—but it wasn't Hannah that Bobby thought of. Instead, he had a sudden vision of John Winchester's first exorcism and the way he'd mangled the Latin so badly that the demon had abandoned ship because it was laughing too hard to keep hold of the host. Marianne's babbling wasn't all that much more unintelligible than John's Latin had been that day.

Marianne made another attempt at his cap, and a flash went off.

He glared across the room. Sam was giving him his best innocent puppy eyes. Hannah was trying not to giggle. Dean was smirking. Ditto Marcy. "I figure out which one of you idjits did that..." Bobby growled, letting the words trail off threateningly.

Hannah lost all control over her giggles. "Sure thing. Gampa," and that was all she managed before she was laughing so hard she had to actually bury her face in Sam's shirt. Sam gave Bobby a helpless shrug, full of innocence and _You don't expect me to control a_ Reynolds _, do you?_

"I am _not_ anybody's _grandpa!_ "

"I'm sure it's just the hair," Marcy said, not helping the situation at fucking _all_ , as she extricated herself from Dean and stood up. "Mama and Dad are the only other people she sees with silver hair, you know."

"You callin' me old?"

She only grinned, rather than trying to answer or dodge the challenge like her idiot husband would. "Just dignified," she said. "Want a refill on the coffee, Gampa?"

There was a muffled snort from Dean's direction, and another one from Sam, and then apparently it was too much for them: It was laugh or choke. Maggie, Johnny, and Kevin were grinning. Rissa snickered. The rest of the kids looked confused.

"Gampa!" Marianne said firmly, and jumped, coming down really _hard_ on his legs.

"Idjits," Bobby muttered.

 _ **the end**_


End file.
